Brewing After 8 Years - Orange Mead

[Jon Eduardo]

Been away from brewing for so long, I thought I will do something different this time, Mead. I had been ogling those honey bottles in the health stores a lot lately.

So I grabbed a couple of 2kg packs of Australian Raw Honey, probably multi-floral, a triple packet of Fleischmann's active dry yeast.

Since I don't want to dive into this brew half-cocked, I prepared beforehand my trusted moonshine additive - basically it's a soup made of wheat germ and and other food derived nutrient for yeast. I would rather go commando style or not go at all.

Using a Fido Jar, that's the fastest I can get, I made 4 liters of must with 1.68 kg (3.7 lb) raw honey , including the wheat germ soup. I used mineralized water from a filter pitcher to make the must. Started at 32 Brix (OG 1.138) and pH 4.3, which I am quite sure this will drop further. Added zest of two oranges, and the fruit segments without the pith, 1 cinnamon stick and 4 grams of dried juniper berries. Started the ferment at 32 °C (89.6 °F), but I will bring it down to 24 °C (75.2 °F) gradually in the next 24 hours.

I acclimated the 5 grams of Fleischmann's yeast in 500 ml (17 oz) of the must for 2 hours on a stir plate, a practice from my sugar mash days. Surely, I got airlock activity after 1 hour. Now it's happily bubbling along at 1 bubble every second and I am expecting it to increase later. Hopefully the yeast has not changed over the years, I am expecting it to finish sweet, up to 14.4 ABV, just like in my previous sugar mash. Well I guess I will find out in a couple of weeks. This will be one heck of a pancake syrup if it doesn't do what it's supposed to do...

 

[Jon Eduardo]

Racked to secondary today and degassed. Finished at 0.999 with 13 Brix of remaining sugar. App calculator falls at 17.4 ABV.

Tasted about 100 ml, sweet but not overwhelming, very warm, definitely with a buzz, but no off smell nor solvent flavors, no burning sensation. Reminds me of tawny port but with a very strong orange and juniper flavor.

Just waiting for my finnings from the US to quickly finish this. I am sure this will mellow out after clearing.

I am quite sure this will not reach the bottling phase. It will be consumed out of a 1 gallon growler by Christmas.

 

[Jon Eduardo]

Finally, I have finished fining this mead, racked twice with 7 days in between. On the final racking, used 1/2 gram per liter in a 50ml slurry. Turned out better than I hoped for. It took a week to full clarity, and bottled it this afternoon.

Two weeks ago, I tried a jigger sized serving and notice that the juniper aroma is completely gone, either I used too little or juniper flavor is very volatile. I finally decided to go the old route with orange mead, I added 1/2 stick of cinnamon and orange peels. It resulted to a very pungent aroma, but the Bentonite addition fixed that.

With all the dilution and lost volume from racking and coerced tasting from my overly eager housemates, I am able to bottle 3 liters of finished mead (4 bottles of 75 cl). According to a an El Cheapo alcohol refractometer, this mead is about 17-ish ABV. Accurate or not, the freakin' thing surely packs a wallop.

BTW, I cheated along the way and pitched a 200 ml starter of K1-V116 to bump the alcohol yield...

So here it is, clear enough to see the apartments across the road. The amber color is due to the cinnamon stick. Taste-wise? Sweet, with a cinnamon upfront aroma, with a lingering orange bitter after taste, more like a pale orange liqueur, not much on the acidity though. It will make a good pair with roasted meat. Gotta make some soon.

After thoughts: Will I make this again? Yep, but probably on the drier side, a bit more acidity will be nice. Will I use bread yeast again? Nope, leave the bread yeast for the bread. No offense to bread yeast users.

Overall this first mead venture turned out well. Definitely, it will blow somebody's socks off at the upcoming holiday gatherings.

Cheers everyone!

 

[bernardsmith]

By calculation your mead is about 17% ABV, assuming total volume is 4 quarts and the source of sugar is the honey (3.7 lbs @ 1.035 /lb /4 qts volume).